[van-announce] (March 21) n a t i o n a l ( i n ) s e c u r i t i e s (Van)

[harsha at resist.ca]

     n a t i o n a l   ( i n ) s e c u r i t i e s


. An evening of cultural resistance with our community of courageous
poets and word warriors performing staged readings of Kafka’s The Trial,
poetry readings, and spoken word
.


“There can be no doubt—said K.  that behind all the actions of this court
of justice, that is to say in my case, behind my arrest and today’s
interrogation, there is a great organization at work. An organization
which not only employs corrupt warders, oafish Inspectors, and Examining
Magistrates of whom the best that can be said is that they recognize their
own limitations, but also has at its disposal a judicial hierarchy of
high, indeed of the highest rank, with an indispensable and numerous
retinue of servants, clerks, police, and other assistants, perhaps even
hangmen
”  -The Trial


TUESDAY MARCH 21, 2006 (International Day for the Elimination of Racism)
FROM 6:30-9:30 PM AT BONSOR COMMUNITY HALL
(6550 Bonsor Avenue, just one block east of Metrotown Skytrain Station)
Suggested Donation $5-10 (includes vegetarian dinner)

Email noii-van at resist.ca or call 778-885-0040 to reserve tickets.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ever-widening web of racist national security in the post 9/11 climate
has incarcerated, deported, and killed thousands of people as Western
states are combating “terrorism” through militarization and occupation
globally and policies of restrictive immigration domestically.

An Amnesty International report documents that over 1,200 foreign
nationals -- mostly Muslim men of Arab or South Asian origin – have been
detained in the United States during inquires into the Sept. 11 attacks,
although by the end of 2002, almost none were charged with any crimes
related to terrorism. As the detention regime at Guantánamo Bay enters its
fifth year, around 500 people from 35 countries continue to be held
without charge or trial and there are mounting allegations of torture of
detainees.

In Canada, five men are being held on secret evidence without charge under
“Security Certificates”, a measure of the Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act. They are imprisoned indefinitely, and mostly in conditions
of solitary confinement and face deportation to their countries of origin,
even if there is a substantial risk of torture or death. Like the PATRIOT
Act in the US, Security Certificates only apply to non-citizens, thus
denying certain communities their fundamental rights. Federal Court Judge
McKay has stated, “in this great city of Toronto, we have our own
Guantánamo Bay”.

Human rights attacks- on bodies marked as foreigners, on people whose
ideas are said to be backward, on societies said to be in need of rescuing
by the armed forces of democracy- are historically rooted in the
imperialist view of indigenous and racialized communities as violent,
backward and uncivilized. Such colonial ideology has justified policies of
occupation and repression both within and beyond these borders. Over the
past five decades, Canada has lent its support to interventions in
Vietnam, East Timor, Afghanistan, Haiti, Palestine, and Iraq. Within these
borders, Canada’s very establishment has dispossessed indigenous
communities and for example, over 22,000 Japanese Canadians were said to
be “enemy aliens” and dislocated and/or interned during WW II.

Join us on March 21, International Day for the Elimination of Racism, to
challenge and confront this historical system of global apartheid and the
current racist crusade known as the “ War on Terrorism”.